Pub landlord stabbed to death after ex-sister-in-law slapped phone out of his hand

A pub landlord is seen on the phone to police seconds before he was stabbed to death.

A pub landlord phone police seconds before his former-sister-in-law stabbed him to death, a jury has heard.

Matthew Bryant was stabbed to death outside the Hare and Hounds pub in Maidstone on September 11.

He had rung police just moments before his death to say his ex-sister-in-law Stephanie Langley had threatened to kill him.

The line was still open when Mr Bryant, 52, was fatally wounded, and he was able to tell the emergency services operator: ‘I have just been stabbed’.

Footage shows Langley knocking the phone out of Matthew Bryant’s hand before the pair disappear from view where Mr Bryant was stabbed twice in the back and once in the chest.

Later Langley, 54, is filmed in the back of a police car telling an officer: ‘I took a knife and I killed him.’

Witnesses to the terrifying incident said Langley had shouted ‘I told you I would stab you’ while repeatedly knifing Mr Bryant.

She later remarked, ‘I’m glad I did it and I don’t mind going to jail’, while paramedics desperately tried to save his life.

CCTV then shows Mr Bryant outside the pub with Langley, and, still on the line with the police, he tries to hand the phone to her.

But she knocks the device out of his hand and when he goes to retrieve it off-camera, she allegedly stabbed him.

A witness described how Langley had lunged forward with the kitchen knife and stabbed Mr Bryant’s right shoulder blade twice before shouting ‘I told you I would stab you’.

Pub customer Eddie Williams said she then held the weapon over her head ‘in a dagger motion’ before plunging it ‘with great force’ into Mr Bryant’s chest.

Maidstone Crown Court heard that this third wound proved fatal.

In a video taken inside a police car after the attack, which was also released Langley tells an officer: ‘I will tell you exactly as it happened; I took a knife and I killed him.’

Despite previously being related by marriage, Mr Bryant’s first contact with Langley in 21 years was when she had turned up at his pub in May 2023.

She did not know he was the landlord of the Hare and Hounds and he did not recognise her.

However, jurors heard that she later described the encounter as ‘a massive shock’ which left her ‘almost uncontrollable’.

Langley’s son Cameron Langley-McColm told Maidstone Crown Court that his mother had alleged that Mr Bryant was violent, abusive, and had committed rape.

He added she became so angry during the encounter with Mr Bryant in May that he had to make her leave the pub.

However, she returned later, still drunk, and shouted that she was going to kill Mr Bryant, jurors heard.

Prosecutors explained that Langley had been going through various personal and financial difficulties at the time which had placed her under a great deal of stress.

Her mother was ill, her son had been involved in a serious road accident, she faced a hefty bill for repairs to her Volvo, and she was drinking more than usual.

However, by the time she returned to Mr Bryant’s pub in September, her former brother-in-law had become ‘the focal point of her rage’, prosecutor Nina Ellin KC said.

Earlier in the day on September 11, Langley’s son told her he would be playing pool at Mr Bryant’s pub.

She replied: ‘Enjoy your pool with the w*****’. Later, she told him: ‘I’ll see you there. Crazy mum remember.’

CCTV then captured Langley arriving at the Hare and Hounds at 5.53pm and being served a drink by Mr Bryant who joined her at a table.

She was later seen trying to smash Mr Bryant’s phone out of his hand while he was serving a customer – someone who Langley allegedly told: ‘Get a drink while he is still alive.’

Just six minutes later, Mr Bryant’s wife Caroline – who did not know Langley – asked her to leave and told her husband to phone the police.

But as Langley got up, she allegedly told him: ‘You’re dead tonight.’

Langley then drove her car to Maidstone East Train station and left it parked there with the hazard lights on before she walked back to the pub.

By 6.05pm, Mr Bryant was outside and in the middle of his police call, which was also played in court.

He was heard calmly telling the operator that his former sister-in-law had threatened to kill him – adding that a few months earlier she had been at the pub ‘gunning for me’.

Mr Bryant said that he had not reported that incident because he had not taken it seriously.

‘But today, she has come in intentionally, had a whiskey, sat down and said ‘I’m going to have you killed’,’ he explained.

‘I don’t want to be told I’m going to be killed. I just sat down out of politeness, but she said to me three times ‘I’m going to have you killed’. How can you respond to that?’

He also told the operator that Langley had accused him of violence and rape but he said there were no police records of any such allegations.

It was at this point in the conversation that Langley approached him. Mr Bryant said: ‘Hang on a tick, would you like to speak to her? I have got the police on the phone.’

But the phone was then knocked out of his hand and the alleged attack ensued off-camera.

A few seconds later, Mr Bryant could be heard telling the operator ‘I have just been stabbed’ while people, including his wife, went to his aid.

The court heard that the time between the phone being knocked from his hand and the knife falling to the ground was 24 seconds.

Paramedics tried to save Mr Bryant’s life but he was eventually declared dead at the scene just before 6:50pm.

Body worn video footage recorded by police showed Langley in a distressed state during this time, shouting: ‘Get away from me, I want to stab him. I killed him. I don’t care. I want him dead…I’m just so happy. I hate him so much… I hope he dies.’

A half empty bottle of Bushmills whiskey was later found in a Tesco bag in the front passenger footwell of her Volvo.

Langley, who sustained a small cut to her hand, has admitted a charge of possessing a knife but denied both murder and the alternative offence of manslaughter.

The trial continues.

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